I'm curious about DAW security as far as virus/malware protection. Mostly I'm curious to know what you guys do to protect your DAW.

My scenario is this: I have a wired (ethernet) internet service connection to my DAW. Internet service is supplied to my house/office via broadband cable to a cable modem. From there it goes to a simple home/office WIFI router. I have a home laptop that connects to the internet via WIFI (also a couple of smartphones in use at the house) but my DAW connects via wired ethernet directly from the back of the router. I enjoy 90 Mbps down and 12 Mbps up. Pretty snappy. Wish the upload was a little faster but generally it's ok for my needs.

That ethernet cable is connected to the back of my DAW 24/7.

When I want my DAW "offline" I simply disable the local area network connection in Windows. When I need to get online, I enable that network connection long enough to get work done, then disable it again. But is that enough? Is it even really necessary to do that? I should mention, I don't have any virus protection on my DAW because of the intrusive nature of virus protection software. Most would agree, it's better to NOT connect your DAW to the internet but I find that method annoying especially when I want to get software updates or upload client projects to my file server (or Dropbox or wherever). I don't want to give up that efficiency if I can avoid it. I've been doing it like this for years and years. Seems to work.

But here's another avenue for heartache. I get a lot of clients who bring files in on portable USB hard drives now. Or they want me to save work in progress on their flashdrives or portable drives. This seems like a open door to trouble if their drive is corrupted with malware.

Is there a better way to remain secure and sleep at night? lol

Last edited by krizrox on Fri Mar 03, 2017 5:18 am, edited 2 times in total.

Where I work all drives and USB sticks are scanned by Kaspersky before we're allowed to download any media from them. Just make it you 'company' policy and then there's no argument from your clients.

At home I run Kaspersky and leave it on except when doing DAW recording work. Right-click disbales it. Playback I'm not so bothered by as a stutter while mixing can be checked back to see if it's there etc. However on a powerful machine like mine I don't even get any stutters anyway. I'm always connected to the internet as it's my only computer in the house.

Good idea to scan once a week with your anti-virus program and something like Malwarebytes etc.

I was hoping to avoid the installation of AV software on my DAW. Has anyone successfully run a multitrack setup with AV installed? Can any of these products be installed to a thumb drive and run from there instead of from the C drive?

I've seen a lot of studio cats who just have a spare PC in the room to do their file scanning before handing the files over to the main DAW. That might be less headache all around.

Just avoid the notorious candidates like Norton and McAfee. They're bloaty and try to take control. I've used Kaspersky for years with Scope, and as I say, right-click on the icon and you have an exit program option. Also (I'm sure this is the same for most decent AV) you can disable auto updates and auto scans etc, so it pretty much sits there idle unless I'm on the internet. Download updated virus tables and scan overnight at your convenience.

Mr Arkadin wrote:Just avoid the notorious candidates like Norton and McAfee. They're bloaty and try to take control. I've used Kaspersky for years with Scope, and as I say, right-click on the icon and you have an exit program option. Also (I'm sure this is the same for most decent AV) you can disable auto updates and auto scans etc, so it pretty much sits there idle unless I'm on the internet. Download updated virus tables and scan overnight at your convenience.

Ditto on Norton/McAfee they are resource hogs. I've had great success with Avast because you can disable it when you want.
I think you can try that one out for free too.

I tried many AV, but now I just use Window's own Security Essentials, which I can turn off when working on music (and offline). Never had a problem with it, and, in principle, should have the best OS integration.

I had been using m$ security essential until prompted by this post.
It appears ransomware and malware are todays horror stories over viruses.
Of the 6 polls and reviews briefly visited yesterday, as already recommended by Mr Arkadin, Kaspersky has the best appreciation.
Avast free came top of the free offerings with m$ security apparently used as a baseline of basic security!
And for malware, malwarebytes.

Maybe it's time to use a better antivirus but there's a lot of fearmongering in those polls.

I bought Avira and don't even need to shut it off.
It's free version is nice but the VPN and removal of duplicate folders, shredding, and way it keeps track of added files in between restore points is a nice way to keep services cleaner and lean.

Since I prefer Windows 8.1 Avira was really useful in blocking M$ofts nagware for upgrading to W10.
Nice having the 3 license deal too.
I have my W10 internet DAW, Scope DAW and iPad all covered.
Went back to a military grade long battery life fliptop.
No more battery issues as it needs a charge every 2 weeks.

Cool guys thanks for responding. I'll take a look at some of your suggested products this coming week. I kinda knew Norton was probably not a good fit already. Ironically, I run that on my laptop because I get a free license through Comcast (my service provider). The laptop is just for general purpose work (school work, Facebook nonsense, balancing the checkbook, Netflix, etc).